Monday, May 11, 2015

"The case for conservative civil disobedience."

Murray’s proposal is less dramatic and more ingenious. The regulatory state has two related weaknesses, he explains: It relies on voluntary compliance, and its enforcement capabilities are far inferior to its expansive mandate. So he proposes a private legal defense fund — the “Madison Fund,” honoring the father of the Constitution — that businesses and citizens can rely on for representation against federal regulators. By engaging in expensive and time-consuming litigation on behalf of clients that refuse to comply with pointless rules, the fund drains the government’s enforcement resources and eventually undercuts its ambitions. The state can compel submission from an individual or company with the threat of ruinous legal proceedings, Murray writes, “but Goliath cannot afford to make good on that threat against hundreds of Davids.”

10 comments:

Why would "conservatives" object to Big Government and want to disobey? They love some of the biggest, most intrusive and liberty-destroying things "government" does- like the military and "border control". You can't have those things- especially "securing our borders"- without an almost unlimited "government" forcibly intruding into all areas of life, all over the planet (including in your own home).

It just seems hypocritical to support such a huge and powerful State while whining about the other nasty and annoying things its employees and agents do in the name of imaginary "authority".

What a great idea. Although I'm not sure how much I like the idea of having to use more of our money to defend ourselves against collectivists who are already using our own money to steal our liberty...A stern warning or two, followed by a revocation of their pulse permit would be much cheaper.

Got the Kindle edition of this on order (not actually being released until tomorrow, 5/12) and plan to read it soon. I don't think the reviewer is a conservative. Some of the subtext I perceived was not what I would expect from someone sharing conservative values. That's why I bought the book.

The basic tactic of crowdsourcing seems to have worked pretty well recently for the left's attacks on Christians and their businesses/beliefs, but I'm not altogether sure it would work with a bust for "illegal magazines" or similar BS laws. Joe the plumber tends to sink low in the Lazy Boy when someone is arrested for breaking a "law"--for whatever reason. As we go along, payment processors like GoFundMe merely change their policies overnight to disrupt crowdsourcing to suit the banks that are extorted by regulators. The funding mechanism would thus be important. I do, however, like the concept. The question is this...will 3% (way overestimated) of the population be able to fund this. I suspect, across 50 states, this would be way up into the 9 zeros and change just for the lawyers.

Yeah, light up another bowl. Who do you think pays for the bureaucrats' lawyers? Do you seriously think they won't just put more on or direct them away from other, core tasks to handle these gadfly cases? Do you think they care about deficits or delays? Fedrool judges will give them until forever to do anything, if they whine they're short of manpower. Try again. This time, with feeling.

Kent McManigal, you're not very smart, are you? When you find out what a "conservative" is and what the difference is between what is Constitutional for our federal gummint versus what it is today, come back for an intelligent discussion. Until then, don't.

@McManigal- Our country, for the FIRST 200 years, managed to have a secure southern border no matter which party was in power- due to the fact that RADICALS and their bureaucratic minions had not yet taken over our country completely.Conservatives, BY DEFINITION, oppose big government. Unfortunately, "Republicans" are not often conservatives. Reconsider your political definitions before preaching. Nice hat, though.

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

On the efficacy of passive resistance in the face of the collectivist beast. . .

Had the Japanese got as far as India, Gandhi's theories of "passive resistance" would have floated down the Ganges River with his bayoneted, beheaded carcass. -- Mike Vanderboegh.

In the future . . .

When the histories are written, “National Rifle Association” will be cross-referenced with “Judenrat.” -- Mike Vanderboegh to Sebastian at "Snowflakes in Hell"

"Smash the bloody mirror."

If you find yourself through the looking glass, where the verities of the world you knew and loved no longer apply, there is only one thing to do. Knock the Red Queen on her ass, turn around, and smash the bloody mirror. -- Mike Vanderboegh

From Kurt Hoffman over at Armed and Safe.

"I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable."

From long experience myself, I can only say, "You betcha."

"Only cowards dare cringe."

The fears of man are many. He fears the shadow of death and the closed doors of the future. He is afraid for his friends and for his sons and of the specter of tomorrow. All his life's journey he walks in the lonely corridors of his controlled fears, if he is a man. For only fools will strut, and only cowards dare cringe. -- James Warner Bellah, "Spanish Man's Grave" in Reveille, Curtis Publishing, 1947.

"We fight an enemy that never sleeps."

"As our enemies work bit by bit to deconstruct, we must work bit by bit to REconstruct. Be mindful where we should be. Set goals. We fight an enemy that never sleeps. We must learn to sleep less." -- Mike H. at What McAuliffe Said

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.